


Knife of Hearts

by gentlezombie



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Daud picks up the Heart, Daud's POV, Gen, Implied Daud/The Outsider, Pastiche, Poetry, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8868727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlezombie/pseuds/gentlezombie
Summary: The deadliest assassin in Dunwall finds himself in possession of a heart – and not just any old heart. Strange dreams and visions begin to haunt Daud. As reality frays around him, memories and secrets begin to creep in.There is a choice to make. There always is.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeCarabas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeCarabas/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, DeCarabas ♥
> 
> No spoilers for Dishonored 2 except for that thing about The Heart which was implied in the first game.
> 
> Many thanks to Elanya for beta!

I have found a heart. Stole it from a dead man walking. His face reminded me of figs and sweet dances. Scars all over, like the death of a dream. Long ago, now.

They tossed him away and he tore through the city like a vengeful gale. Corpses piled on corpses. A vivisection of all I've done here in this wretched dank Dunwall. My bloody career condensed into a few months of fury and frenzy.

I should hate him for it. Putting on such a display while I spent years in the dark, shadows and time gnawing at my bones. But I can't find it in myself to hate. Not after her. She changed me even as she died. An Empress. Born to change things.

He was her lover. Maybe he thinks this is justice. Still believes there is such a thing. I wouldn't know. Or maybe his mind is broken. Men who profess to be holy have their racks and their knives. Who knows? We are all mad here. This city is falling, fallen.

My hand delivered the final blow. The knowledge haunts me even as the rats multiply.

His friends turned on him, fed him poison, gave him to the river. I should have left him to the hagfish. But I saw the mark on the back of his hand, smelled the rotten seaweed stench like a stale memory. The black-eyed bastard plays his games with this one. Picked him over me. Bastard, as I said.

Maybe that is why I did it. Sent my Whalers to fish a half-drowned man out of the river. Pried open an unresisting hand and found on his palm a lump of metal and flesh still living. Trembling, trapped and full to bursting. Whoever crafted this thing, I saw the Outsider's laughter in its design.

I don't like knowing the reasons for my actions. I don't like anyone else knowing, either.

I kept the heart and I let the man live. He stole a key and slipped out like a ghost, thinking the artefact lost in the bottom of the sea. By this I have gained time I'm not sure I wanted.

[Audiograph recording in Daud's quarters in the Flooded District]

 

* * *

 

This heart is a curious object. More so than most. When I first touched it with my bare hand, it recoiled from me. A great burst of electricity passed through me like the heartbeat of some enormous thing. My hair is still standing on end as I write this. For a moment I thought my own heart would stop. But it didn't.

I once spent a winter at the Academy of Natural Philosophy in the guise of another. I was there to kill a man and took my time about it. There I learned to understand the workings of brilliant and demented minds who wished to unveil the mysteries of the spheres, to tame them and use them for their own ends. Their minds were like engines – cogs and wheels turning and grinding everything into their own dusty image of an ordered world. They were unable to see that there are things which cannot be contained even by the vastness of the sea. Those who had an inkling were shunned, called heretics, cast out.

I was more surprised by the way this heart fell into my possession than its existence. I have seen schematics and models of similar things, built in man's quest for immortality. I have spied the bodies cut open in deep cellars where no one cared that they were still alive. The ones who did this were the dullest men imaginable. Focused on resurrection, they could not see all that could be accomplished in a lifetime. I thought I did. More the fool me.

Now this foundling heart is quiet, though I imagine I can feel it seething in silence.

When my concentration wavers, I think I hear a faint whisper.

_“You should not have parted us.”_

[Daud's notes on the nature of the Heart]

 

* * *

 

In a dream I am my mother and I'm standing on the deck of a ship in high wind. The gale whips my hair and throws salt in my face. The men aboard are busy at work under my hawk-gaze. I have fucked each one of them. I came on this ship a prisoner and a slave. Now I own it and I own them. I know their black and bloodthirsty hearts, and they cower from me. They are right to do so.

The child is a seed in my belly, the knowledge settling in me like roots taking hold. I have a decision to make. There are solutions I could brew or buy. There are midwives with wicked hooked tools.

Or I could hide my knives and walk on land again among the guileless folk of these Isles. Even if they saw some trace of wildness in my eyes, they would not dare to question it. I have money enough, skills I can sell to make a living.

I am not young. Dark Pearl of Pandyssia I was once called for the gleam in my eyes. Now the years have spun their web around them. I may not get this chance again.

I find I am curious to see it through.

[My mother aboard a pirate vessel. Her own. A brief and bloody career. How can I know these things? I can still feel the touch of rough hands on me like stains seeping through skin.]

 

* * *

 

_Lightning in the Month of Nets_

_He came to me in the Month of Rain_  
_From Serkonos of hushed whispers_  
_A gift to delight an Emperor_

_He became mine in the Month of Wind_  
_Wound together like vines by the years_  
_A sharp blade and sweet hands in the dark_

_He sailed on a ship in the Month of Clans_  
_Like a whaler hunting a distant dream_  
_A miracle for me and my ailing city_

_He was buried in the Month of Earth_  
_What broke free was a marked thing_  
_A twisted serpent, our screams entwined_

_My spirit was caught in the Month of Nets_  
_Lingering, loathe to leave these shores_  
_A fluttering fury trapped in flesh_

[I have no recollection of writing this. My hand still holds the pen. The smell of electricity is heavy in the air.]

 

* * *

 

I'm starting to remember things. Is this how one prepares for death? I gave her no time to do that. Perhaps that is why she haunts me. The Empress and her little girl, the one I gave away to the rich wretches at the Golden Cat. For some reason the thought makes bile rise in my throat.

I look at my life and I ask: why did I do all this? I have no answer.

There used to be things that I wanted. Tiny things, insignificant things. Things I could not have. I don't even remember them, only the gnawing emptiness that grew inside of me. First I fought to achieve something. Then I fought because I could not stand the thought of stopping. An endless race against nothingness, and to what end? There can be no victory.

And then there was him. The black-eyed bastard, the god of the deep places. I visited all of his shrines, once. In the Void there was him, existing in the face of that emptiness and laughing. Though I made the decision to seek his attention, I think he'd already been made aware of me. When I was a child mother gave me a necklace, said it was special. She had her poisons and her night-thoughts. This was the kind of thing she would have done.

There was a time he filled my world. He made me feel invincible. Special, like the charm around my neck. Such great deeds we could do together. He whispered to me of a world forever changed by my hand. The twisted irony is not lost on me. He's a bastard. Guess we had that in common. And more, but I have no wish to find words for that.

I still hear them in my head.

_“Little lost boy, lost in his embrace, lost without it.”_

[A stained journal page, splattered with brownish liquid and reeking of whiskey]

 

* * *

 

I poison our escort on the way to White Cliff. I put the herbs in the strong drink they serve us to keep us calm and docile like sheep led to slaughter. The herbs are ground into such fine powder, sweetened with bits of crystallised honey to mask the bitterness, and carried in a little pouch sewn inside the lining of my clothes. The poison smells like home.

None of them notices a thing. Mother would be proud. The charm she made for me from bone and hair feels warm against my skin, like it too is pleased. I watch them drink their death, captives and captors alike, while I pretend to be drunk and knock over my cup. There is no feeling in me. Only a sense of curiosity.

There is a man among the Overseers with a friendly face and kind eyes. I watch him as he chokes to death, vomiting up his insides. That way I don't have to look at the children. I can still smell the stench of shit and blood. They all die. Their bodies are left curled up by the roadside like small dead animals. This is the first time I have done this.

I don't stop. I don't ever stop. I steal an Overseer's coat and slip it over my patched clothes, strap on his wristbow and pocket the sharp steel darts he would have used on us. I'm thirteen and tall for my age. As long as I don't speak, I can walk brazenly through the gates of any city on Serkonos. My roving feet love to trespass. My steps are guided by dreams of a night-eyed stranger, always just out of reach.

The only thing I don't dare to do is to go home. She bid me good day so gently when they came and took me away. Like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She was many things, my mother, but she was never kind.

[The memory leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Was it she who sold me? Gave me away as tribute to the Overseers so they would turn a blind eye to her trade of poisons and curses? An old scab. Long forgotten. There are things you don't need to know.]

 

* * *

 

Must an Empress always be crowned with sorrow? It is hard to find joy or celebrate life when death still clings to my sleeve like my father's faltering hand. He let go in the Month of Darkness. The whale-oil lights of the ceremonial hall hurt my eyes. They are dry from the tears I've shed, knowing these must be the last.

The Royal Protector stands behind me. I can feel him though I do not see him. His eyes are always open.

I know my duty. The Kaldwins rose to the occasion when fate dealt us this hand. I have been prepared. Though I approach the lifelong task before me with trepidation, I also know this to be right. The world is taking its proper shape.

And I know that he will always, always have my back. Were I less than perfect and wanted to run away from it all to hide in some distant town in Tyvia among the strange pale folk, he would still do my bidding. It is this thought which gives me the strength to walk into my new life with my head held high. His silent steps echo mine.

[I wake up, the ceremonial crown a tightening band around my head. For a moment I imagine I feel a presence beside me and am calmed by it. Then I reach for my blade.]

 

* * *

 

Didn't do it on purpose. Don't think so anyway. I was never some pretty thing to look at. But I remember the satisfaction when my nose broke for the first and the second time. And when I used that corrupted bone charm and my tooth fell out, all rotten through – well, someone might have stopped at one.

Someone who hadn't grown up listening to such warnings as my mother gave. She knew men too well. Women, too. She did not care for people. I don't know that she cared for me. She did warn me, though. Told me all the ways to break restless hands and blind a wandering gaze. Her tales followed me to dreams. I never thought of telling her about them. After all, I was right to be afraid.

For her the world was a dark place with a few glimmering gems scattered here and there. She loved the art of crafting poisons and ailments. There were always herbs drying from the rafters of our home. I was used to fumes from her alchemical apparatus that would have made grown men swoon. Sometimes she would make me eat strange fungi which gave me cramps and nightmares. Her tea was always bitter though it was sweetened thickly with honey. I was not yet twelve and you would have been hard pressed to find a poison to kill me.

I knew more about death than life. It never really went away.

_“Little sparrow, all too fine, cruel men will pluck out your feathers.”_

Was that what she used to say?

[An audiograph recording spoken in a thick Serkonan accent, full of slurred words and strange inflections]

 

* * *

 

I watch Emily tear through the garden with her toy sword in hand. She is battling imaginary foes, heedless of her white clothes or the carefully tended flower-beds. In her mind, she is a hero in training. She always trails behind Corvo and begs him to tell her stories of the fights he's fought on far-off isles. How did you get this scar, or that? He smiles and tells her something other than the truth. A feeling wells up in me too great to describe, almost close to pain.

She gives me so much joy. I know that one day she will have to carry my burden. She is strong, our girl, our Emily. Sometimes at night when sleep escapes me I ask if that will be enough.

I want her to be free like I was not to imagine lives other than this. How else will she truly understand the hearts and minds of her subjects? This is my reasoning for those who dare question us. But I also know I do it out of nostalgia for a long-lost childhood I never had. I can give her the world and all its isles, and I would still rather give her this.

There will be time. Time to watch my loved ones mock-fight across the garden, hug my Emily tightly, share a secret glance with my lover with all the warmth I must not show. She will not have to grow up yet.

[Who is it that sends me these dreams? They do not come from the Outsider. I should not write these things. I know Billie Lurk reads my journal. But the thoughts keep hammering in my head until I let them out.]

 

* * *

_Daud longs for his beloved_

_The boy he loved when he was young_  
_Had apples on his cheek_  
_The girl he fell for flashed a grin_  
_And quickly had him beat_

_Who cares for strictures? They did not_  
_And could not read that well_  
_He dreamt of skin and hands and lips_  
_To the tolling of the bell_

_The boy left him for a pretty thing_  
_He was killed with a knife_  
_The girl said he was full of sin_  
_Cruel poison took her life_

_The sparrow never fell again_  
_Its feathers turned all black_  
_And rot set in the little heart_  
_He never got it back_

_He yearns for him, he longs for him_  
_The one who dwells alone_  
_Outside the years, outside the spheres_  
_His eyes like dark stars shone_

_He killed an Empress to impress_  
_The spirit of the deep_  
_For what he wants and what he gets_  
_He tends to always keep_

[I will burn this. The handwriting is not my own.]

 

* * *

 

I was given a warning. In my dream I was in the Void, but it was not the Outsider who was waiting for me. It was her. The Empress stood there in the emptiness with my sword still piercing her body. She was all dressed up in funeral finery, somber black and silver. I wanted to reach and pull out the blade, but that would have had no meaning, not even in a dream. She spoke to me with bloodless lips.

_“There is something you must know. Delilah. Do not think I do this for you. I do it for the future of others. Mine you have already taken.”_

The questions were on my tongue but I could not speak. I had heard that voice before in whispers and in dreams.

She watched me with dead eyes. I thought I saw something on her face. A shadow of an emotion. Then words dropped like stones on a fresh grave.

_“He is watching you as you burn out.”_

[I should have known what it was. I should have known who it was. Lurk, if you read this, I know you think I have gone mad. Get out of here. Get out of Dunwall while you can.]

 

* * *

_What will we do with a rotten butcher?_  
_What will we do with a rotten butcher?_  
_What will we do with a rotten butcher?_  
_When the night is falling_

_Drown him in a barrel of river krust whiskey_  
_Drown him in a barrel of river krust whiskey_  
_Drown him in a barrel of river krust whiskey_  
_When the night is falling_

_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_When the night is falling_

_What will we do with an empress-killer?_  
_What will we do with an empress-killer?_  
_What will we do with an empress-killer?_  
_When the town is falling_

_Grind his bones to a dusty powder_  
_Grind his bones to a dusty powder_  
_Grind his bones to a dusty powder_  
_When the town is falling_

_Sell fine tea for the poor of Dunwall_  
_Sell fine tea for the poor of Dunwall_  
_Sell fine tea for the poor of Dunwall_  
_With the dark one watching_

_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_Down, down, and down he goes_  
_With the dark one watching_

[A traditional whaler song played from the audiograph with some strange verses. The voice is like a drowned man's whisper. Who is it that's singing?]

 

* * *

 

I did it. I destroyed them, Delilah and her coven of witches, and spoiled their plan. Saved little Emily for the throne. Now there will be another Kaldwin ruling over the Isles. I wonder if it matters. How much of a difference can one girl make? Whatever happens, no one will remember me for saving an empire.

The victory is hollow. Billie Lurk betrayed me. It stings more than it should. Perhaps more because I let her walk away. She left me a travel guide to the Isles, complete with her own notations and a message of hope. There was more to her than I saw.

She is right. Maybe there is still a world beyond these walls and it might be worth something. This knowledge will make the ending all the more bitter.

Now all is said and done. Knowing what I know, I have nothing to do but wait. There was never any doubt that he would come for her. Corvo Attano, her lover from Serkonos, the one whose sweet hands now run red with blood. My Whalers are butchered or scattered. Though I've fought and bled every step of the way to come this far, I can't find it in myself to raise my blade against him.

Perhaps this is her revenge. Perhaps it is something else. Impossible to know. She was an Empress for a reason.

If I wake up tomorrow, I won't pick up a sword again. Even as I think it, I hear the Outsider's laugh and know that men's promises are fickle and quick to break.

I can hear him. On the edge and falling, I can at last hear the voice I've longed for with the desperation of a drowning man.

_”You are finally interesting again.”_

Something in my chest snaps like the chord of a whalebone viola.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for leaving such an intriguing prompt! I fell more and more in love with Dishonored as I was writing this. I hope I managed to spread some of that joy ♥


End file.
